The U.S. Secret Service, working with a coalition of international law enforcement agencies, has hacked and taken down the website of Garantex, a Russian cryptocurrency exchange accused of ties to darknet markets and ransomware hackers.
The U.S. Secret Service, working with a coalition of international law enforcement agencies, has hacked and taken down the website of Garantex, a Russian cryptocurrency exchange accused of ties to darknet markets and ransomware hackers.
On Thursday, Garantex’s official website was replaced with a message that the exchange’s domain had been seized by the Secret Service on a warrant from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the latest action by Western governments against the Moscow-based exchange, TechCrunch reports .
The operation was conducted in coordination with the U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Europol, the Dutch National Police, the German Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt or BKA), the Frankfurt am Main Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation, and the Estonian National Criminal Police.
Last month, the EU also imposed sanctions on Garantex, saying it was «closely linked to Russian banks subject to EU sanctions.» This was part of a package of sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
In 2022, the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Garantex, alleging that transactions worth over $100 million made on the exchange were «linked to illicit entities and darknet markets,» including the infamous Russian extortion gang Konti and the darknet market Hydra.
On Thursday, the Garantex web domain pointed to servers known to be controlled by the Secret Service. The same server also hosts several other notices of Secret Service website takedowns in recent years.
On Thursday morning, Garantex announced that it was «suspending all services, including cryptocurrency withdrawals.»
The decision was made after stablecoin issuer Tether froze $28 million worth of its cryptocurrency on Garantex.
